Australian article on trans kids clinic

[GCGayDad]

Jus spotted this via a Twitter thread. www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/staying-on-her-feet-how-michelle-telfer-won-gender-clinic-battle-20200416-p54kjf.html

Very timely in view of the other Australian thread on here at the moment (“Proud of my 15-year-old having a menopause”).

Lots of striking and familiar stuff in this article, eg:

• the graph of massively increased referrals to the clinic since early 2010s
• the claim that this is only because of increased visibility of trans community & issues and blanket exclusion of any other factors such as social contagion
• the astonishing statement - by the writer of the article and not even the doctor interviewed, as if it’s a fact set in stone - that the effects of puberty blockers are “reversible”
• The reference by the doctor to highly dodgy statistics about suicide levels and negligible levels of transition regret

I think what’s most annoying for me about this is the fact that - even though dissenting opinions are mentioned - they are immediately dismissed and the whole thrust of the article is well, what reasonable person could be opposed to what the clinic is doing? What a brave and lovely person this is fighting fir the rights of these poor kids? Aaargh!

In the 1960s and 1970s, the same hospital in Melbourne used hormones to "cure" "tall girls". Which turned out to be carcinogenic.

It certainly makes any person expressing concern out to be transphobic (as is usual) or pushing a Christian doctrine.

The article says “pointing to evidence;”.
The first article is a trans phd’s students list of .. effectively ways Lisa could improve her ROGD research paper. Which she did, and republished.
That single author had potentially useful opinions but it is an overstep to say Arjee Restar, whose specialism seems to be sex workers, succeeded in “debunking the idea of social contagion;” as stated in the Sydney Morning Herald..
Is this a reputable paper?

Sydney Morning Herald has its biases, as do most papers. It is at least not owned by the Murdoch’s.